Nexus Nightmare
by Chrazed
Summary: Coggy the gnome priest adventurer is the newest hero to enter the Nexus. John her as she completes her tutorial and discovers all the horrors of what the Nexus has to offer... Can she escape her Nexus Nightmare and return home to Azeroth?
1. Arrival

"What… where am I?" Coggy sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "This isn't Dalaran. Last thing I remember…"

"Well met, hero!" A voice boomed beside her.

Coggy screamed and jumped a foot in the air - quite the feat for a gnome knee-high to a human.

"Oh, I am sorry. I did not mean to startle you."

Coggy spun around and stared at the man who had spoken to her. He was a short bearded man wearing the telltale golden armor of a Paladin.

"My name is Uther the Lightbringer," the man continued. "I can see by your robes that you are a priest. It is a pleasure to meet another devotee of the Light in this strange place."

Coggy glared upward at Uther. "You can call me Coggy. And I am a priest, but not of the Light. I follow my own religion, based on good-old gnomish ingenuity!" Coggy stamped her feet. She was used to dealing with human knuckleheads who assumed being a priest meant being a priest of the Light, but it still annoyed her.

"Ah. A shame. All the same, welcome to the Nexus, Coggy."

"The Nexus? That Blue Dragonflight place in Northrend? Impossible!" Coggy gestured wildly around them. "There's grass here!"

Uther looked confused. "Err… no. The Nexus is its own dimension, where heroes from every world come to do battle!"

Coggy grimaced. "Ugh. And what if I don't want to fight? How do I get back to Azeroth?"

"You… you can't. We're stuck here. No one knows how, or why. Mages can't cast city portals, warlocks can't perform the ritual of summoning… we're isolated."

"Lovely," grumbled Coggy. She stared off into the distance a moment, thinking, then she suddenly snapped her attention back to Uther. "Wait… did you say you were Uther the Lightbringer? I know you! I visited your tomb in the Western Plaguelands. And I saw your soul at Icecrown Citadel! How in the name of machinery are you alive?!"

"My… soul?" asked Uther hesitantly. "I don't think I want to hear that particular tale. In any case, it would not surprise me to learn that you are from my future. The Nexus seems able to take heroes from any time, as well as place."

That grabbed Coggy's attention. "It can mess with the timestream? Does the Bronze dragonflight know about this place?"

"Indeed," Uther added, nodding. "They sent their own representative to the Nexus to investigate. Her name is Chromie, and she usually takes the mortal form of a gnome, like you. She doesn't have any answers, though, and now she's trapped in the same cycle of warfare the rest of us are."

"Hmm…" Coggy scratched at her bright red pigtails like she usually did while deep in thought.

A bell clanged in the distance.

"My, we've run out of time," Uther declared. "Your tutorial battle is about to begin. Follow me!"

Uther walked away.

"Hey, wait!" Coggy called, then scampered after the Paladin. "Tutorial battle? What do you mean?"

"The Nexus pulls in a new hero about once a month. They get a tutorial game to introduce them to their new power level. The Nexus balances us all, you see, so no hero is too much more powerful than any other, which means your increased or decreased power level can take some getting used to."

Coggy furrowed her brow. "Wait, I've lost some of my powers?" She stopped, closed her eyes, and reached out to Uther with her mind. Nothing. Her eyes flew open. "What in the name of machinery? I can't cast mind vision!"

"Yes, I can't cast many of my paladin spells either," Uther replied patiently.

"This is an outrage!" Coggy declared, her face contorted in rage. "I slew the Lich King! I killed Deathwing! I've destroyed two old gods! I've saved the world more times than I can count, and I can count really high! I demand respect!"

Uther smiled at the gnome as one might smile at the tantrum of a child. "My friend, everyone the Nexus has taken deserves respect. Or fear. But the Nexus won't give it. We have been forced into perpetual warfare. Might as well get used to it. Enjoy your tutorial battle while you can. Fights will soon grow far more difficult."

Coggy harrumphed. "I'm the greatest gnome to ever live. I'll find a way to escape."

"You're welcome to try," Uther smiled patronizingly.

Coggy knew he looked at her like a child. Like most humans looked at gnomes. Judging her by her size. She hated it.

Coggy stormed off towards the battleground. Uther followed.

After a few minutes, Coggy came out of the forested trail into a large stone-paved clearing filled with a swirling blue light. When she stepped into the light, she began to feel more awake and rejuvenated.

"Ah. Healing magic," Coggy pronounced.

"Indeed," Uther replied, following her into the light. "This chamber is the Hall of Storms. Your hearthstone is now attuned to this location. You can use it during battle to return for healing, before jumping back into the fray."

"My hearthstone?" That was when Coggy realized she was no longer wearing her backpack. All of her items, her loot, her companion pets… gone. She rummaged around in her robes, and found that there were only two items she had been allowed to retain: her hearthstone, and her mount whistle, stored in different robe pockets. She quickly channeled her hearthstone's magic to test Uther's words. Indeed, she could feel that it was no longer attuned to her home on Azeroth. The magic now called it only to the clearing she currently stood in. Well, that was one escape plan foiled before it could begin.

"Ah, and here come our allies for this battle," Uther called out.

Coggy looked around, and saw three bodies materialize in the clearing around her. It wasn't as though they had exited a portal or anything. They simply weren't there, then there was a flash of light, and then they were there. It was strange.

"Well met, friends. I am glad to see you will be joining us for this battle," Uther called out to them.

A strange hooded being stepped forward. He was covered in white and gold plate armor, with shimmering bright blue wings spreading out behind him. The closest thing Coggy had ever seen to such a being was one of the Val'kyr. But this creature sported a body built like a male, and there was only darkness under the hood where his face was supposed to be.

"A pleasure to fight alongside you as always, Uther," the being spoke, his voice reverberating throughout the clearing. Then he looked at Coggy. "I take it this is our newest hero. I look forward to taking the measure of you."

Coggy scowled. "Is that a short joke? Measure me? I'd like to see you try, you giant… thing!"

The being cocked his head. "Interesting."

"Oh, don't mind him," came a voice right beside Coggy's ear.

"Aieee!" Coggy yelped and jumped a foot in the air again, before whirling around to look for the source of the voice. No one was there.

Then Coggy's eyes widened as the empty space shimmered and materialized into a blonde human woman in a tight-fitting outfit made of some fancy material Coggy didn't recognize.

"Sorry," the woman said, though she was smiling. "Forgot I was cloaked."

Coggy looked at her suspiciously.

"Now now, pardners," drawled a deep voice. This time, Coggy was able to identify the source as the incredibly well-armored man standing beside the golden being. Seriously, he was better armored than any tank Coggy had ever run a dungeon with. There weren't even any chinks – his body was completely covered. "We're all on the same team, here," he continued. "Way I see it, we should introduce ourselves. Name's Jim Raynor. Pleasure to meet ya." The man extended an ogre-sized hand in Coggy's direction.

Coggy stared at it, then extended her own hand, grabbed one of his fingers, and shook it. "Coggy," she said.

"My name's Nova," said the blonde, one hand on her hip and the other carrying a long gizmo Coggy wasn't familiar with. "But I'm not interested in making friends when we'll have to be killing one another soon enough."

"I thought we were on the same team?" Coggy asked, confused.

"We are for this match," Uther answered patiently. "But in the next match we may be enemies."

Coggy furrowed her brow. "That's… odd. Next you'll be telling me I'll have to fight alongside members of the Horde! Could you imagine?"

"Err…" Uther stammered. "We fight alongside the Horde quite often, actually. Sylvanas, Thrall, even Gul'dan. Allies and enemies seem to be selected randomly from the pool of heroes."

"WHAT?" Coggy exploded. "This is not acceptable! Gul'dan in particular is the farthest thing from a hero I can imagine! I refuse to ever work alongside him!"

"I understand how you feel, friend," spoke the golden being. "My name is Tyrael, Angel of Justice! And justice demands the deaths of the prime evils a thousand times over. But I cannot live up to my title, for I have many times been forced to work alongside Diablo himself."

Coggy scoffed. "How could anyone possibly force you to work alongside your enemies?"

"By punishing defeat. Harshly," Uther replied, eyes downcast.

"If our team loses, we get tortured," Nova said, staring at Coggy with cold eyes. "After a taste of that, enemies are willing to work together to avoid the pain."

Coggy's disproportionately large eyes widened. "If we lose, we get… tortured?"

No one replied.

"Fine." Coggy threw her stubby hands up in the air. "I guess we'll just have to win, then. When does the match start?"

"Less than a minute," answered Nova. "We should take our positions. I'll be roaming between the top and mid lanes."

"Sounds like a plan," Raynor replied. "I reckon I can guard the bottom lane."

"I'll ensure the top lane does not fall to our enemies even when Nova cannot join me," Tyrael declared.

Uther nodded. "And Coggy and I will take the middle lane." He leaned over me. "Stay close, lass. I'll keep you alive."

Coggy rolled her eyes. "I am a priest, you know. I can heal myself."

"All the same," Uther replied. "This plan seems safest. Tyrael and Raynor can each hold a lane without help. Nova, you, and I don't have the waveclear to be alone."

" _Waveclear?"_ Coggy thought, confused. She wasn't one to let others know that a gnome didn't understand something, though. What a disgrace that would be.

"Fine. You're the expert here," Coggy responded, scowling.

"Great. Follow me," Uther said, as he walked out of the healing magic into a large stone-paved plaza surrounded by buildings and walls.

Coggy followed, as he walked through a large gate, past another building, and up to a strange-looking wall. On the way, Nova, Raynor, and Tyrael departed for other gates.

Then, Coggy heard a dark voice begin to count down. "10, 9, 8…"

"Ready, lass?" Uther asked over the countdown.

Coggy nodded, but her wobbling knees betrayed the truth.


	2. Battle

"5, 4…" the dark voice continued.

Suddenly, Uther summoned a golden horse under him. It whinneyed as it materialized, lifting Uther up onto its back. "You should summon your mount as well," Uther muttered down to Coggy.

Coggy nodded, took out her mount whistle, and blew the tune to summon her massive frost wyrm. A horse appeared beneath her. A common brown horse, such as a peasant might ride.

"What?!" Coggy screamed. "Where's my frost wyrm?! My dragons, my gryphons, anything but this! This is an outrage!"

While she spoke, the dark voice finished its countdown, and the wall in front of her shimmered and disappeared, save for a long blue magical barrier. Uther clicked his tongue to command the horse and rode it through the barrier into the woods beyond.

Coggy sighed. "Fine. I'll make do." She ordered her horse to follow.

Uther rode into a patch of tall grass on the edge of the path. The grass on the edges of the patch were so tall that he was effectively invisible to those outside it. Coggy followed him in. For some reason the interior grass stalks were shorter, so she was able to quickly spot him and ride up to him.

"These bushes provide cover from the eyes of our enemies," Uther whispered. "Making use of them is critical to victory."

"Why don't I have my mounts?" Coggy angrily muttered back to him.

"Balancing reasons, I believe," Uther replied quietly. "Mounts here travel slower than mounts in Azeroth. And none of them can fly."

"But why do you have a cool golden horse while I have this lame brown one?" Coggy demanded.

"As you win matches, the Nexus will reward you with more interesting mounts. And also with new clothes sometimes, so you're not just stuck wearing those same robes from now on."

Coggy looked down at her white and red robes. She was equipped with the most magically powerful items priests could wear that she'd been able to find. She refused to ever take them off except to put on something more powerful. But as she looked down at her robes, she realized something. She could no longer feel any magic in them. They were just cloth, now.

Well, that changed things. Maybe she could accessorize for beauty for once. Sure, the technique to apply the magical benefits from one piece of equipment to a different piece had recently been developed in Azeroth, but it was expensive, and Coggy was too practical a gnome to value fashion over her money, not when there were still engineering experiments she needed to fund.

While she was lost in thought, a massive metal hook suddenly broke through the tall grass, wrapped itself around her, and pulled. Hard. Coggy flew screaming off her horse (which dematerialized), out of the bush, and into the feet of an abomination.

"Stitches want to play!" the abomination shouted, grinning down at the little gnome.

Coggy's mouth hung agape. Then she recovered enough to stammer, "But, but, but, you're dead! I killed you, in Duskwood, years ag-" before Stitches' giant cleaver slammed down on her.

Coggy had just enough time to worry if, without her magical equipment, Stitches would be powerful enough to split her in two, before she felt the cleaver pass through her body and crash into the ground under her. Thankfully, the Nexus was still like Azeroth in at least one way: the magical protection known as "health points" had activated. She felt about a tenth of her health points disappear to fuel her protection, so it seemed Stitches had been fairly balanced against her.

She breathed heavily and then, when Stitches lifted his cleaver for another strike, turned tail and fled. "Don't think I can beat him in melee range," she whispered to herself. "I'll have to kite him."

When she had gotten a few meters away, she turned around and attempted to fire a mind blast at the abomination.

Nothing happened.

Coggy swore. "Right, I haven't figured out what spells the Nexus will let me cast. No choice; I'll just have to keep trying."

Stitches cocked his head at the gnome's antics, then hobbled after her. "You funny," he called.

"Laugh at this, abomination!" Coggy shouted, then casted Mind Flay. Nothing. Shadow Word: Pain. Nothing. Mind Spike. Nothing. Mind Sear. Nothing.

"Aaargh, nothing works!" Coggy shouted.

Stitches drew close, and raised his cleaver again.

Coggy's eyes widened, then she ran again. "Uther!" she cried out in a panic, before she chided herself for showing weakness. She didn't stop running, though.

"I'm coming, lass!" Uther called out. Coggy spotted him riding out from the bushes in pursuit of her. When they neared, he dismounted (the horse disappeared) and cast some paladin spell that launched a wave of light. When the wave reached Coggy, her health points restored to full, and she watched it continue past her to Stitches. She sensed the abomination's health points deplete slightly, but if that was all the damage Uther could deal, they were screwed.

"None of my damaging spells work!" Coggy cried out when she reached the paladin.

"The Nexus must have assigned you a support role, like me," Uther answered. "Try casting a healing spell."

Coggy gritted her teeth, reached out to Uther with her magic, and cast Flash Heal. Nothing. Power Word: Shield. Protective golden magic erupted around Uther.

Relief suffused Coggy's face. "Okay, there's one spell I can still cast." Then her expression turned sardonic. "A shield. How helpful."

"It'll be useful later," Uther replied. "Come on, back to the gate!"

Stitches approached. Uther cast some spell that caused a mystical hammer to appear over Stitches' head and stun him for a moment, and then turned around and ran.

Coggy joined him, and they both fled back to the magic blue barrier. Stitches broke off the chase when they got close enough for the cannon towers near the gate to begin firing upon him.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Coggy stepped through the barrier, only to scream and jump two feet in the air once again when she heard the clang of Stitches' hook colliding with the barrier just behind her.

"Close one," Uther said, breathing heavily.

"You're telling me," Coggy cried out. "The thing nearly cut me in half! I can't work under these conditions! If I can't cast my shadow spells, I'm the healer! So where's the tank and dps?"

A shot rang out, not unlike a dwarven boomstick, but… cleaner. Stitches howled in pain.

"Well, there's one dps, at least," Uther smiled. "Come on!" He charged back out the gate.

Coggy sighed frustratedly and followed. When she looked at Stitches, she realized with a start that he was flanked by TWO Novas. As she watched, both Novas fired another round into the abomination's flesh. He roared and slammed his cleaver into one of the Novas. She disappeared in a flash, and the other Nova backed off.

"Oh…" Coggy thought. "She can cast mirror image. Strange, she didn't look like a mage."

Another crack rang out from the long gizmo of the real Nova, which she was holding like hunters held a boomstick. Stitches' health points dropped to half strength.

Coggy furrowed her brow. "So she's a mage, but she can wield a hunter weapon?"

Uther joined the fray, striking Stitches with his giant hammer and then casting his stunning spell.

Coggy followed, throwing another shield on Uther, but then she stood helplessly, trying to think of something she could do. She realized with a start that she still had her artifact weapon strapped to her back. She'd ignored it because, like her robes, she could no longer sense any magic in it. Still, though she loathed to use such a formerly mystical staff in such a mundane fashion, she supposed it was still usable as a blunt weapon. She pulled it off her back and held it at the ready as she approached the abomination. Just as she was about to swing it at Stitches, she thought she felt a glimmer of magic erupt from its magical crystal. She paused, then attempted to channel the crystal's magic. A bolt of holy energy catapulted out of the staff and into Stitches' head. As Coggy continued channeling, after a moment to regather energy, the staff fired again.

"Yes!" exclaimed Coggy. "There's at least one offensive thing I can do!" She frowned. "That didn't come out quite right."

Nova, Uther, and Coggy all kept attacking Stitches as he attempted to waddle back into his base. It looked like he would escape, but as his health points dipped below the 20% mark, Coggy felt a familiar bit of shadow magic activate within her magical core. She smiled. "Shadow Word: Death!" Coggy screamed for the fun of it, as she launched a blast of dark energy at the fleeing abomination. When they collided, Stitches exploded. Then, his pieces evaporated.

"By the Holy Light," Uther swore.

"What the hell?" asked Nova, coming out of her invisibility near the pair.

"Guess I kept some shadow magic after all," Coggy answered, shrugging, but also smiling.

"Why didn't you do that sooner?" Nova demanded.

Coggy glared at her. "I couldn't. That particular brand of shadow magic can only be cast on an enemy with a small percentage of health points."

Nova grumbled, then went invisible again.

 _Clearly a mage_ , Coggy thought.

"That must be your second basic ability," said Uther. "You'll have to keep trying to find your third. It's usually a mobility or survivability spell."

"We only get three?" Coggy asked.

"Aye. You can get more as the battle goes on, though. Unless you're Xul. Everyone hates that necromancer because he's the only one to start with four abilities."

"Yeah, I hate him already," Coggy grumbled, thinking about what she'd do for access to just one more spell.

"Come, the minions have already begun fighting. We must go to their aid!" Uther said, already walking back to the middle of the forest path.

While they were talking, a bunch of tiny armored creatures had marched out of the enemy gate, passed them, and engaged a corresponding bunch of creatures who had marched out of the allied gate in battle. Uther joined the fray, his massive hammer taking away a third of a minion's health points in one blow.

"What are these things?" Coggy asked, strolling over to Uther and launching bolts from her staff at the minions. "I'm as tall as they are. Are they gnomes?"

"No, they're automatons. Constructs. Golems. They help their teams push lanes, even when the heroes cannot be present. Killing them can grant a lot of experience."

"Constructs?" Coggy asked as she vaporized one of the sword-wielding minions. "They're so lifelike! Do you know who constructed them? I must learn how to engineer them myself!"

"No one knows where they come from," Uther answered solemnly in between swings of his mighty hammer. "The Nexus just makes them appear at our core and march down a lane."

"Our core?" Coggy inquired.

"The giant building just outside our hall of storms," Uther explained. "If it falls, we lose. If the enemy team's core falls, we win."

"I see," Coggy answered. The last enemy minion fell before her, and the remaining friendly minions continued their march to the enemy gate, where they were swiftly torn apart by the the enemy towers flanking the gate.

"We need to destroy those towers if we're going to make any progress," Coggy declared.

"Aye," Uther agreed. "Their ammunition is limited, so as long as we can keep throwing minions at them, they'll break eventually.

Suddenly, a loud sound rang out, like the shattering of heavy glass.


	3. Victory

"What was that?" Coggy shouted after she had recovered from jumping two feet into the air.

Uther stood still a moment, a glazed look in his eye. Then he came to and answered, "It seems Raynor killed Nazeebo down in the bot lane. Excellent!"

New minions were pouring out of both gates. Coggy began to launch more magical attacks. "How could you possibly know that?" she shouted to Uther.

"I checked the minimap. You can do it too. Channel your magical energy through the glowing orb up there!" Uther pointed into the sky. "It'll let you see everything our allies can see."

Coggy looked up. Hovering in the center of the sky was a kind of imitation sun. It clearly wasn't a real sun. Not bright enough, not warm enough, and Coggy thought she could make out a metallic sheen behind the glow.

Coggy whistled. "If that's a product of engineering, I absolutely have to meet whoever made it," she thought. She followed Uther's orders and attempted to channel her magical energy through it.

Abruptly her point of view changed. It felt exactly as though she had cast mind vision on the orb. She could now see the whole battleground from a top-down perspective. She saw Uther and herself killing minions in the bot lane – she felt her body channel the magical energy from her staff and launch her attack even as her mind stood outside of it. She saw Raynor shooting minions in the bot lane, while the body of a dark human in a giant mask evaporated beside him. She saw Nova and Tyrael fighting a giant red monster in the top lane, while minions battled beside them. As she watched, another enemy hero came into view. Illidan.

Coggy felt her body's eyes widen. Then she smirked. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised the Nexus chose him. Never liked those new demon hunters. I'll enjoy killing their leader again." As Illidan dove onto Nova in a flurry of blades, Coggy ended the magical channel, returning her mind to her body.

Uther and Coggy finished off the wave of minions. As the last fell, the sole magic user in the squad, a green orb appeared where his body had evaporated. Uther walked over to it. When he touched it, it disappeared, green energy suffused him, and a bolt of green energy flew to Coggy and spread through her. Coggy recognized the telltale signs of healing magic. "Ah, so walk into the green orbs that fall from the magic minions. Got it."

Another loud cracking sound resounded through the air, followed shortly by another, which possessed a different, more mournful tone. Coggy quickly checked the orb again, and saw that Tyrael had successfully killed the red beast, but Illidan had successfully killed Nova. As she watched, Nova's body evaporated, not even leaving a skeleton.

"Wait…" Coggy said, frowning, when she had returned to herself. "How are we supposed to return to our corpses to resurrect if they just dissolve like that?"

"We resurrect at the Hall of Storms after a short period of time," Uther answered.

"Ah. So it's like a battleground. This is another Alterac Valley, isn't it? A battle for meaningless reasons over a meaningless place that never ends."

"Basically," Uther agreed.

"Except it's worse, because I'll have to fight for the Horde sometimes." Coggy scowled. "Damn gnome-punters. Man, I hate battlegrounds."

"Best get used to it," Uther advised. "This is your life now."

Before Coggy could deliver a biting retort, a giant hook suddenly flew at her, collided with the minion standing in front of her, and pulled it into the enemy towers, which obliterated it instantly.

Coggy gasped. If she hadn't been standing behind that construct…

"Looky looky!" Stitches called as he ambled out of the gate. "Stitches got hooky!"

"The abomination resurrected!" called out Uther. Coggy mentally changed his name to "Paladin Obvious."

Then Coggy's eyes grew wide as saucers. Following Stitches out of the gate was a familiar figure. The only being that had ever really scared her. The Lich King. Arthas.

"Frostmourne hungers!" the dark armored figure called out. He pointed his runed sword at Coggy, and a bolt of frost magic flew out its tip towards her.

Coggy swore with the dirtiest Gnomish word she knew, and tried to run. The frost magic caught her and froze her in place.

She turned to watch as the face of death marched towards her, soul-stealing blade raised to strike.

An insistent whistle rang out from Uther's position, and the thought "Uther asks for assistance!" appeared in her mind. The strange experience broke Coggy out of her panic. She glanced at Uther just in time to see his eyes clear up, indicating his mind had just returned to himself. He rushed over and cast his stun spell on Arthas. The sight of him bent over, dazed, shattered whatever spell of fear Coggy had been under.

Of course," Coggy mentally slapped herself. "This isn't the monster that nearly killed and raised 25 of us as his slaves. This Arthas is BALANCED."

She grinned, and began rapidly attempting to cast spells. Uther had said her third would probably be a survivability spell, and she could use one right now. Escape artist didn't work. Levitate, nothing. Leap of faith on a minion. No. Angelic feather. Success! A giant golden feather nearly as large as Coggy appeared in front of her. As soon as the frost magic wore off, she rushed for it. It disappeared as Coggy absorbed its magic, granting her supernatural speed. She ran back to her gate.

Stitches and Arthas chased after her, ignoring Uther's attempts to slow them down, until the friendly towers began to fire on them. Then, they backed off. Suddenly, gunshots rang out. Raynor appeared out of the southern bushes as a resurrected Nova uncloaked in front of the northern tower.

Arthas' health vanished fast. As he and Stitches tried to retreat, Coggy felt the shadow magic unlock inside her. She smiled. She ran out from the safety of the gate and cast her shadow word: death spell at Arthas. The sound of him exploding was impossibly pleasant.

Stitches escaped, but as Arthas died, Coggy felt the telltale power increase of a level-up.

"Level 2," she whispered, rolling her eyes, but smiling. "I haven't been level 2 in, like, a decade. I suppose it might be fun to not be max level, for once."

"Nice work," Raynor complimented her. "Now I best be getting back to the bot–"

Raynor was interrupted by the dark voice that had provided the countdown at the beginning of the battle. "Hmm... a good kill," it said, its sinister voice booming throughout the battleground. "Now, gather tribute, or face my curse. The choice is simple."

Coggy looked at her allies, confused.

"A tribute is about to spawn," Uther explained. "We have to obtain it before the enemy team. If we get three tributes, the Raven Lord, who just spoke, will curse the enemy buildings so they can't attack for a time."

Coggy nodded, and followed the others as they summoned their mounts and rode off the path into the northern forest.

"What was that whistling sound you made?" Coggy asked Uther as they rode.

"A request for aid," Uther replied. "Nova and Raynor answered the call."

"Can I do that?" Coggy asked.

"Certainly," replied Uther. "While channeling your magic through the sky orb, focus on an object, and you will sense that you can cast up to five magical calls concerning it: a request for aid, a warning of danger, an order to retreat, a command to defend, and a report of your current destination. Frequent usage of these calls is crucial to team coordination."

"Interesting," Coggy answered. "Let me try." She channeled her magic through the orb, and spotted a large ghostly purple winged figure in a forest clearing, which her party, Tyrael, and every visible enemy hero was traveling to. She focused on the figure, which she surmised was the tribute. She felt the magical calls Uther had mentioned open up to her to become castable. She chose one and released the magic, noting with pleasure that it didn't cost her any mana, the resource that determined the number of spells a magic-user could cast.

A fairly quiet, pleasant chime rang out, and the message, "Coggy is on the way!" appeared as a thought in her mind.

A second chime rang out in response, and the message "Tyrael is on the way!" appeared as a thought in Coggy's mind.

"Handy," mused the gnome.

The group rushed for the tribute, but the enemy team did too. Soon a brawl erupted in the forest clearing. Thanks to Coggy's recent kill, however, it was five against four. She threw out shields and feathers to support her allies, and cast shadow word: death whenever the enemies' health grew low enough. The enemy team was swiftly routed, and Uther claimed the tribute by touching it for a long enough period of time for it to dissolve.

"One down, two to go," declared Nova, before she cloaked and moved in the direction of the top lane.

"Wait," called Raynor. When he received no response, he continued, "Hmph. Even without her, I reckon' we should capture a mercenary camp."

"A capital idea, friend Raynor!" declared Uther.

Coggy followed the group as they ran through the forest.

"What's a mercenary camp?" She asked Uther as they traveled.

"Every battleground has a few neutral creatures. When a team depletes their hit points and stands in the designated circle, the neutral creatures will restore their hit points and travel down the nearest lane, fighting the enemies of the team that defeated them. It really helps to push out forces in a lane past enemy defenses when the enemy team cannot respond."

"Interesting," Coggy replied. As she traveled, and then attacked a pair of boulder-throwing ogres with her team, she reviewed what she knew. "So, I'm stuck in an endless series of battles, I only have three spells to work with, plus the ability to see through the sky orb and issue magic calls, and I get tortured whenever I lose. Lovely. How will I escape?"

Coggy set her brain, which she had always considered to be particularly magnificent, to work on solving the problem, but for once she couldn't think of any good strategies. The problem was, she didn't know her enemy. Obviously the force that brought and kept her here was intelligent, not natural, and it would likely anticipate and foil any potential escape plan. Simply walking away surely wouldn't work, and Uther had already confirmed that magical transportation methods were somehow disabled, so she couldn't ask Nova to summon a portal, even if the mage had retained a portal spell. What options remained? None she could think of at the moment. She'd have to bide her time, and try to learn more about her situation.

One potentially useful fact was discovered as soon as Coggy hit level four. She felt the telltale rush of power that accompanied the unlocking of a new talent tier. She was familiar with the occurrence from her time leveling up in Azeroth, although the fact that her whole team leveled up and chose talents together was new. Like all adventurers, Coggy could sense her options through some magical means she didn't understand. Her first option was to buff her power word: shield to heal its target for an amount equal to the damage she dealt while the shield was active. She rejected that one, reasoning that the group only had five people, including Uther, and they really didn't need more healing. Her second option was to buff angelic feather so that if an enemy ran across it, they would be slowed by 50% for 3 seconds. Her third option was to make her trait activatable.

"Wait, what?" Coggy stopped, surprised, in the middle of a battle with the minions of the middle lane. "What's a trait?"

"Ah, yes," Uther replied, as he finished crushing a minion's skull between his giant hammer and the ground. "Every hero has a trait, some ability, usually passive, that the Nexus allows us to help preserve our uniqueness. Mine is to turn into a spirit healer of sorts for a short time when I die. Never understood why, myself, though I think your earlier "ghost" comment might help explain the Nexus' decision there. I hope…"

But Coggy didn't really care what Uther hoped, and she was fervently examining the magic of the last talent. Inferring from the description of the talent, it seemed her trait was called "Gnomish Engineer," and it allowed her to collect "bolts" from dead enemy minions and heroes. Whenever she collected 5 bolts, she would automatically use those bolts to create a mechanical yeti that would travel down the nearest lane, attacking any enemies nearby. The talent, meanwhile, allowed her to "activate" the trait to create a yeti out of 5 bolts, otherwise it would wait until she had ten bolts, at which time she would create Jeeves, a robot butler that would quickly restore health and mana to nearby heroes.

"Interesting." Coggy thought. "I wonder if future talents will allow me to build more things." She mentally selected the trait talent and felt the new power suffuse her.

The rest of the battle wasn't too exciting for Coggy, who was used to taking down armies and literal gods both by herself and in massive groups. The skirmishes that were five versus five at maximum were as nothing in comparison. Her team kept ahead of the enemy in levels, and with her increased strength, plus both her and Uther's defensive abilities, the enemy was never able to lock her down and kill her. Coggy was grateful there weren't any stunlock rogues in this particular battleground.

When she reached level ten, Coggy felt her heroic abilities unlock. The first caused spirit healers to run from her to every hero within a short range, sticking to them for 3 seconds. If a friendly hero took lethal damage while a spirit healer was attached to them, they would instead be healed to 1/2 health. The second required her to stand still and channel, but rapidly healed every friendly hero on the battleground. Neither seemed likely to help her escape from the battleground itself. She chose the first.

Finally, when her team had reached level 14, 3 levels ahead of the enemy team, they acquired their second curse, disabling all enemy buildings, and pushed with a bunch of minions and mercenaries all the way to the enemy core. They wiped the enemy team, thanks in no small part to some well-timed shields and five casts of Shadow Word: Death (she'd taken a talent to reduce the cooldown). "Victory!" The Raven Lord shouted as the enemy core exploded, and all Coggy's allies began to cheer. Coggy couldn't help joining in.


	4. Defeat

The next thing Coggy knew, a new game was beginning. "The battle begins in… one minute!" screamed a hoarse old guy who sounded like a pirate Coggy once killed.

Coggy groaned, and looked around at the allies teleporting into the Hall of Storms around her. She recognized none of them.

"Who are you all?" she asked. "Where's Uther?"

"Just completed the tutorial mission, did you?" said a haughty dark-haired woman who sounded suspiciously like Nova. Her dress and staff indicated she was a mage. "Lovely. Guess it's on me to carry us to victory, as usual."

Coggy didn't like her attitude.

"Oh, she'll be fine, Li Ming!" squeaked a little gnome nearby. A gnome! "Trust me." Then she turned to Coggy. "I'm Chromie. Or… have we already met?"

"Yeah, we've met," Coggy answered for what must have been the fifth time in as many years. "I'm Coggy, remember? There was that time we fought against the Scourge in the Western Plaguelands, then we saved the timestream together at the Culling of Stratholme, and most recently you helped Khadgar and me figure out how Garrosh got to the alternate Draenor."

"Really?" asked Chromie excitedly. "I only remember bits and pieces of all that! Time is all wonky here. It messes with my head. But I'm pleased to make your acquaintance once more!"

"Hey, enough gabbing! Let's get ready to teach these losers a lesson!" The voice came from a goblin! A goblin! Coggy's hated enemy, the Horde's sorry excuse for engineers. He carried a giant mechanical contraption on his back right now! Coggy wondered how long it would be until it blew up.

The goblin rode on his mechanical spider mount away and up to the still closed gate, and Li Ming and Chromie followed shortly thereafter.

Coggy sighed and joined them as the old pirate began the countdown. "10. 9. 8."

Coggy looked back at the fifth hero, some sort of weird insect thing. Not like a silithid or a mantid, larger, with a sluglike body and multiple arms. It made no move to join them.

"1!" called out the pirate, and the gates opened.

"Isn't the insect going to join us?" Coggy asked Chromie as they rode out.

"No, he's Abathur." Li Ming answered angrily.

Coggy ignored her and continued looking at Chromie.

"He can't fight," Chromie replied more patiently. "He stays where it's safe and activates symbiotes to help his team in battle."

"Hmm," Coggy thought about that. "Like a long range buffer. But if he's in the back, and you fight at range, and Li Ming's a mage-"

"I'm a WIZARD," Li Ming interrupted. "Spirits!"

"And I'm a priest," Coggy continued as though nothing had happened, biting back the urge to retort. She'd learned not to argue with contentious members of her group long ago. "Who will tank?"

"I'm afraid the goblin's the closest thing we have," Chromie answered disappointedly.

Just then, the goblin in question veered off the path and headed across an intersecting bridge down towards the bottom lane.

"Where are you going?!" cried an indignant Li Ming. "Let Abathur take the bottom lane, you idiot! We need you here!"

If Gazlowe heard, he showed no sign of it, and Coggy swiftly lost sight of him.

"We're screwed," sighed Li Ming. "Not even I can carry a team like this to victory. I hate it when the Nexus does this. It's so stupid."

"Hey, cheer up," said Chromie encouragingly. "The enemy must have an equally bad team."

As she finished speaking, she stopped her goat mount, and Li Ming and I followed suit. "This is a watchtower," Chromie explained to me. "It'll give us vision of the area."

Coggy watched the ground as a massive circle surrounding them slowly changed in color from yellow to blue. When it was fully blue, there was a "whoosh" sound and it was as though all the tall grass around us had parted, forming constant visual pathways to allow line of sight in all directions.

Chromie gasped. Coggy looked around, then froze in fear.

The enemy team was visible. Two gigantic demon things stood in a bush, one wielding a massive meat cleaver, the other prowling on eight enormous legs wreathed in fire. A monstrous woman covered in scales and wielding two bony serrated wings like spiky weapons followed them, and following her… was the Firelord himself, Ragnaros.

Suddenly, the demon with the cleaver screamed. "Fresh meat!"

Before Coggy could even process what was happening enough to throw out a shield, Chromie was nothing more than a stain on the monster's weapon. It laughed.

The scaled woman leapt upon Coggy, digging in her claws and depleting Coggy's hit points.

Coggy and Li Ming screamed in fear and tried to retreat. Coggy gave herself a shield and a feather, and Li Ming used the mage spell "blink." It wasn't enough. Meteors and cleavers rained from the sky, and then Li Ming hit the ground, lifeless. Coggy ran as fast as her little legs could go. Suddenly, the shot of a boomstick rang out, and Coggy realized the fifth member of the enemy team was familiar. "Told you we'd be against each other soon," said Nova calmly as Coggy's soul violently wrenched itself from her body. As Coggy's soul floated back to the Hall of Storms, she saw her body disintegrate.

It only took a few seconds for her soul to float to the Hall of Storms, and she was immediately reconstituted there, along with Li Ming and Chromie.

"They have three melee assassins!" Chromie was squeaking. "Three! Plus a Nova who will ambush us and an Azmodan who will push all the lanes. And we have a newbie on our team! There's nothing we can do!"

Li Ming looked more smug than upset. "Told you." She sighed. "Might as well stay in the hall and wait for it to end."

"What kind of attitude is that?!" Coggy cried out. "I've won battlegrounds my allies said we'd never win, and cleared dungeons my party said we'd never clear! We got caught by surprise, that's all! We can do this! We have to do this! Otherwise we get tortured!"

"You get used to it," Li Ming said. "And it lasts longer the longer you play. I'm going to cut my losses." She raised her head up to the sky and shouted, "I quit!"

There was a thunder-crack, and then Li Ming looked forward again, and Coggy could see that her eyes were empty and glazed over.

"What?" Coggy asked, too confused to put together a more coherent question.

"When a hero leaves the battle early, she's replaced by a bot." Chromie explained. "It's like… her body gets possessed by a different spirit. A really, really stupid spirit. If we hadn't lost before, we have now."

A crack rang out. The goblin had died as well.

Suddenly Coggy felt three magical calls in succession. Each of them said, "Gazlowe wants to help Coggy."

"Where were my heals?!" demanded Gazlowe's disembodied voice, as his soul rushed into the altar with them.

Coggy blinked. "You took off on your own. How was I supposed to heal you on the other side of the map? Stay with us this time!"

Gazlowe ignored her, mounted up, and took off for the bottom lane again.

Coggy looked at Chromie. "This is hopeless, isn't it?"

Chromie looked at Abathur, who had said nothing and had yet to move out of the hall of storms. She nodded.

…

Ten minutes later, Coggy had died many more times, and the enemy was tearing apart their core.

"So what's the torture like, exactly?" Coggy asked Chromie as she watched the core burn.

"It's a shot of pain," squeaked Chromie. "The duration and intensity depends on how the game went. This one… will probably hurt. A lot."

As she finished speaking, the core exploded. "Defeat!" cried the pirate.

Coggy lost consciousness, and then she became aware of only one massive sensation. She couldn't see, or hear, or anything else, but she could feel rage. She was angry, livid, so full of hate it hurt her. She'd felt anger before, of course, but this was different. It was a fire inside, burning her up, consuming her body and soul in rage. She had no idea how long she stood in the dark with the pain and anger, but finally she felt it subside.

"Initiating battlefield conditions," cried out a new voice, female and robotic, as Coggy appeared in yet another Hall of Storms.

"Ugh," Coggy groaned, her body still aching. "Can't I please get a break?"

"Never," breathed a dark and all-too-familiar voice. The Lich King laughed at Coggy's torment.

…

1,000 games later, Coggy had learned a great deal about the strategies of the various nexus battlegrounds, but she was still no closer to discovering a means of escape. She kept trying, talking to every ally she encountered, praying one of them had retained some magic that could help them escape. Medivh had retained some portal magic, but it was only short-range, and he could also transform into a raven and fly, but not outside of the battleground. Falstad could fly as well, on his gryphon, Dehaka could burrow through the earth, and Brightwing could teleport long-range, but none of them could travel outside the boundaries of the battleground.

Since the Nexus had clearly anticipated attempts at using a heroes' particular abilities to escape, Coggy hoped to surprise it by using strange interactions between different abilities. She discovered a lot of bizarre interactions through her experiments: Falstad's hit points would deplete if he flew over the location of a mine buried in the ground by Abathur, for example, even though he never made physical contact with it. Every once in a while, usually just after another new hero had entered the Nexus, she'd even come across an interaction that the Nexus had clearly not anticipated, but none of these errors ever did more than make a particular hero more or less powerful, and the Nexus quickly corrected them.

Her next idea was to investigate all the talent builds available to her and her allies, praying that one or more of the talents could provide an answer. She learned a lot about how to pick talents that synergized for increased power during the battles, but thousands of games' worth of experiments revealed no potential methods of escape arising from talents.

As Coggy grew more and more experienced in the Nexus' battlegrounds, the Nexus rewarded her with new costumes and mounts, just as Uther had promised. One of her costumes dressed her up like a mecha-gnome, and several of the mounts were mechanical, but she found she was unable to break any of the tech down into the nuts and bolts necessary to construct potentially useful engineering devices. In fact, no costume or mount changed anything more than cosmetics. Even the flying mounts could do nothing more than hover, and certainly could not fly away from the battlegrounds.

Still, she could gather bolts from the enemy minions, so Coggy started designing and creating scientific devices to gather data about the Nexus. She hoped she could learn something that would allow her to engineer an escape, but everything she discovered about the world of the Nexus made it seem identical to Azeroth, save for the disconnection from the Twisting Nether and from any magic that might empower an escape from the barrier-encircled battlegrounds.

There were no options remaining. No hero had an ability or talent that could save her. No combination of abilities or talents could save her. No costume, mount, or engineering device could save her. There just was no means of escape from the Nexus. After another 2,000 games, Coggy finally gave up, and turned towards instead wondering which of the millions of souls she had murdered during her time as an adventurer had been innocent enough to justify damming the gnomish priest to hell.


End file.
